Sunday, July 29, 2007

Last week I did not like the way things were shaping up. I expected to see continued strength from cyclical stocks as they posted good earnings and I expected to see strength in the financials once they demonstrated their lack of exposure to tightening credit markets. I believed those two events were going to rally the market to new all-time highs during option expiration week. The negative reaction from both groups told me that the market was in trouble. When I looked ahead at this week’s economic numbers I did not feel that there were any that might influence the market. In hindsight, that was fairly accurate. Housing numbers were the fly in the ointment. The market has become numb to the bad news from the sector and it had braced itself for more of the same.

The shock came when CFC, considered to be one of the sharpest lenders, hosted its earnings conference call. They described how loan defaults are spreading to other areas and the market panicked. CFC has been proactive in managing their risk and the market was shocked. As the week unfolded, the selling pressure increased. Once the market gained selling momentum the buyers pulled their bids. After a few air pockets, the bottom fell out Thursday. At its worst level, the market was down 50 S&P 500 points. It had small afternoon rally and that pared some of the losses. On Friday the market looked like it might fight off a number of attempts to push it lower. The bears got their wish in the last 30 minutes and once again, the bids disappeared going into the weekend. The drop felt like there were no buyers, as opposed to too many sellers. I won’t discount the move since it easily made its way down to a major support level at SPY 146. I did not expect that.

The magnitude of the decline this week was bigger than what we saw in February. In fact, this was the worst 5-day period since the year 2000. The market has new information that it needs to digest and it’s likely that this round of selling will take more than a few weeks to work off. The market will bounce and test support levels during the next two months before it settles down. Increased volatility will remain through September. Any attempt at a year-end rally will have to include the financials and tech.

Next week’s economic releases will include personal income, the PCE price index, Chicago PMI, consumer confidence, ISM and the Unemployment Report. The unemployment report is the most important release and it has been bullish for the market every month this year. A 4.5% unemployment rate and hourly earnings that are outpacing inflation are positive for the economy. I believe this report and end of month buying will support the market and rally stocks from an oversold condition. I’m not looking for the market to resume the rally; I just feel it will repair some of the damage.

If the SPY closes below 146, my bias will switch from bullish to a neutral. Earnings have been decent and interest rates are coming down. I feel U.S. stock valuations are reasonable and as a nation, we have full employment. These are all positives for the market.

That said, I do have some concerns. When money is loose, people get sloppy. That’s true for home buyers, bankers, builders, asset managers… Tightening credit markets remove inefficiency. American consumers are tapped out. We are entering our 27th consecutive month of a negative personal savings rate. This can’t go on much longer. Global equity risk exposure is also a real danger. No one really knows the magnitude of the yen carry trade. We can only hope that traders and brokerage firms reacted to the warning shot that was fired last February. As credit tightens, brokerage firms raise their margin requirements. If hedge funds have to reduce their holdings, that selling could spillover into our market. I also suspect that many emerging market equities are overvalued.

Follow us on Twitter

Join us on Facebook

Subscribe on Youtube

Visit Our Sponsors

Our Contributors

Fari Hamzei is frequently quoted by Benzinga, StocksNJocks, CNBC, Bloomberg, FoxBusiness and RealMoney. His book, Master Traders: Strategies for Superior Returns from Today’s Top Traders, published by John Wiley & Sons in October 2006, immediately become a bestseller on Amazon trading books space. Three times, Fari has been the featured advisor on Timer Digest monthly newsletter when each time he was ranked FIRST in the Nation for the previous 12 months among 150 market timers. More recently, in August 2015, he was ranked SECOND in the country, then moved to FIRST place in October 2015. In December, he briefly was ranked SECOND and since first week of January 2016, he has been ranked ONE in the Nation till present.

From 2006 to 2011, once or twice per year, Fari has taught his Proprietary Sentiment Indicators at The Options Institute of CBOE. And, he often shares his methodology on CBOE Options Hub.

Fari is a graduate of Princeton University with a BSE degree in financial engineering, and studied financial derivatives with Options Theory luminaries such Jack Shelton, Ed Thorp, Robert Geske, Richard Roll & Robert Whaley (inventor of original VIX) at UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management. He was manager of the Operations Analysis Dept and then was promoted to the director of Strategic Planning at Northrop Grumman Corporation's Aircraft Group after being recruited only 5 years earlier from college. He also served for eleven years on the Board of Directors of Electronic Clearing House (ECHO), now an Intuit company (INTU).Read Fari's Recent PostsBrad Sullivan is a member of both MERC & CBOT Exchanges, and trades for his own hedge fund in Chicago. His comments posted in our HFT Premium Chatroom, is read each day by many active index, debt and commodity futures traders.Read Brad's Recent PostsMark "SPO" Esposito aka The Admiral, has traded as a sole proprietor and as a partner in the Designated Primary Market Maker (DPM) structure at the CBOE for 27 years. During the late 80’s “SPO” was regarded as one of the most active and largest traders on the CBOE Floor. Experiences like trading the crash of 1987 and the tech bubble burst of 2000 proved invaluable in understanding option volatility. Extending those experiences in mentoring of many individuals helped develop many successful traders during his tenure. While serving in the CBOE committee structure he was integral in the CBOE transition from open outcry to hybrid (open outcry + remote market making). He was then recruited by OneChicago as its Managing Director of Business Development. After 12 years at OneChicago, in mid-December 2015, he joined HA to run our HFT Options Trading. Today, strategy and trading analysis are part of his many active roles.
Michael Blythe's trading experience began at the beginning of the 2nd Iraq War in 2003 as an intern for an institution on the AMEX floor that would later become part of Charles Schwab. From there he became responsible for hedging an agricultural operation until 2008, when a month before the Lehman Brothers fall, he accepted a role to manage fixed income trading for an 'accredited investor' trust which periodically took him to the CBOT floor to work with seasoned strategists. Since then he has gained education and experience working with one of the featured traders in the Market Wizards series and is currently completing a degree from the London School of Economics.Read Michael's Recent PostsPirouz Hendi graduated from California State University Fullerton with a BA in Business Marketing. Pirouz started his career in the financial industry at Prudential Securities in 1999 as a licensed Stock broker after successfully completing series 7, 63 and 65 securities exam up until 2003. Pirouz has been an independent trader in the equities market since 2007 with primary focus on individual stocks and ETFs. Pirouz has successfully completed the beginner level of CBOE option courses and is planning on completing their intermediate and advanced level courses as well.
Vic Sehgal is a Volatility and ETF trader. Currently trading for private clients, Vivek has been in the industry since 2005. He worked with Merrill Lynch Private Client Group from 2005-2009 and then moved on to the NRI group at the flagship Merrill Lynch office at World Financial Center. During his time with Merrill Lynch, Vic was a successful Financial Advisor, working with elite clients from the tri-state area.
Vivek resigned from Merrill Lynch in 2009 when it became BofA. He moved to an independent firm, Newport Coast Securities and worked there with his clients till 2011.
From 2011 till 2015, he worked with JSM funds as CEO and head trader.
Vic is very experienced in trading ETFs, and Volatility. He is a technical trader, and had worked closely with Hamzei Analytics since 2012. He closely follows Hamzei Analytics ideology and applies those principals to ETF and Volatility trading.
Steve Shobin, the former Vice Chairman & Chief Investment Strategist for AmeriCap Advisers, LLC, is a veteran of more than four decades on Wall Street where he was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, Inc. and a First Vice President at Merrill Lynch. Mr. Shobin was a senior member of the research divisions at both firms. During his tenure, he developed unique methodologies for projecting the long term trends of stocks and industry groups, incorporating various techniques for controlling risk. Mr. Shobin has advised some of the world's largest mutual funds, hedge funds, and institutional investment managers on stock selection and portfolio structuring. Steve has been a member of the Institutional Investor All-American Research Team in 1997, 1998, 1999, and received a #1 ranking in the year 2000 just as he was leaving Lehman to join AmeriCap Advisers.
Jason Goepfert is President of sentimenTrader.com. He has been trading stocks, stock and index options, index futures, currencies and commodities for over 15 years. He holds several securities licenses and has most recently managed the operations of a $3B hedge fund and top-10 online brokerage (Gomez rankings). Jason founded sentimenTrader in 1998, and began a web presence in 2001. Currently, the site has subscribers in all 50 states and 40+ foreign countries. In 2004, Jason was awarded the prestigious Charles H. Dow Award for Excellence in Technical Analysis by Market Technicians Association.Read Jason's Recent PostsJeffrey Spotts, CMT, a contributor to Master Traders, is a hedge fund manager for Prophecy Funds. He has more than 16 years of experience providing portfolio management to corporations, institutions, and high-net-worth clients. He began his career in 1989 at Merrill Lynch Private Advisory. He was responsible for over $500 million of client assets under management. In May 2001, he launched Prophecy Asset Management, a technically managed hedge fund catering to institutions, pensions and family offices. He also teaches a behavioral finance segment of a graduate studies course for several colleges.
Read Jeffs's Recent PostsFil Zucchi is the founder and manager of Zebra Investment Advisors LLC, a Virginia registered investment advisor, and Zebra Fund, LLC, a long/short hedge fund. Before founding the Zebra companies, Fil managed individual long/short accounts. Prior to that, he was a bankruptcy and commercial litigation attorney in a Washington, D.C. law firm. Fil was a contributor to theStreet.com Street Insights. Fil is also currently involved in his family’s commercial real estate development and management operations.Read Fil's Recent PostsDavid Miller, a contributor to Master Traders, is the CEO and co-founder of Biotech Stock Research, LLC, publisher of Biotech Monthly. Launched in October 2001, Biotech Monthly combines a monthly newsletter format with alerts on breaking news on more than two dozen development-stage biotechnology companies under coverage. His firm is one of the few independent research firms in that it accepts no money from the companies it covers, does no outside consulting in the biotech space, runs no mutual or hedge fund, and is 100 percent subscription-supported. In addition, David was CEO of a successful technology company and a university professor.Read David's Recent PostsFrank Barbera, CMT, a contributor to Master Traders, is a co-manager of the Caruso Fund, a $35 million hedge fund that seeks to make gains trading precious metals, stocks, and currencies. He began his career in the early 1980s working with John Bollinger, Bill Griffith, and Susan Herrera at Financial News Network in Los Angeles. After FNN, Frank spent 10 years as an on-air market analyst for KWHY-TV in Los Angeles. His first money management position was at the Kavanaugh Fund in Santa Monica, a hedge fund subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. His technical work in gold and gold stocks is considered among the best in the industry.Read Frank's Recent PostsTim Ord, a contributor to Master Traders, is the president, editor and publisher of The Ord Oracle, established in 1990, which is an electronic advisory newsletter that recommends S&P, NASDAQ, and gold stocks trades. He is frequently listed in the top 10 market timers in the country. Timer Digest ranked Tim No. 5 in gains for the S&P and No. 2 for gold timer in 2004. He has more than 25 years of trading experience and placed fourth nationally in the option division in the United States Trading Championship in 1988.Read Tim's Recent Posts